Thursday, 23 June 2011

YAMARAJA: THE LORD OF DEATH

Yamaraja is also known as Dharmaraja. He is the son of Sangya who was the daughter of Vishwakarma and wife of Surya.
The complexion of his body was dark and he carried a Dand (stick) in his hand. He accepted the task of rewarding the good actions and punishing the evil actions. The buffalo is his vehicle.

Yamaraja is considered as one of those twelve teachers of Bhagwata, religion, the knowledge of which makes a man immortal. The rest of the teachers of Bhagwata-religion are Brahma, Shiva, Narad, Sanaka, Sanandana, Kapil, Manu, Prahlad, Janaka, Bheeshma, demon king Bali and Shukadev.

Yamaraja is a part of Lord Vishnu. Yamapuri is his abode where he resides and performs the difficult job of making judgements and giving rewards and punishment according to the virtues and non-virtues and sins committed by a man. Yamaraja is one of the greatest devotees of Lord Vishnu and is always busy singing His praises. For a sinner, he shows his most terrifying appearance, riding a buffalo and with a stick in his hand during the dying moments of his life. But a man who has been virtuous all his life sees his most gentle appearance.

Yamaraja's instructions to his messengers are to bring all those who commit sin and non-virtues and who do not remember the divine qualities of Lord Vishnu, who do not chant His holy name, who have not for once bowed before His feet and who commit sinful actions going against the path of virtuousness.

When his messengers are about to leave towards the mortal world to bring the souls of the dead men, he whispers in their ears not to bring those virtuous people because it is beyond his jurisdiction to judge their actions.
His messengers carry the virtuous people with great respect to the Yamapuri and Yamaraja after evaluating their virtues sends them to the higher worlds.

Since the Yamarja is one of the teachers of Bhagwata religion, therefore he tries to avoid cruelty in dealing with the sinners because it is against his nature to be cruel. He punishes the souls only so that they are purified and after they take their next births, they do not commit the same mistakes but on the contrary lead a virtuous and pure life. Just as the gold purifies when heated in the fire, similarly Yamaraja's punishments do away with the impurities of the soul.
While giving discourses on the importance of devotion to his messengers he says: "One who meditates on the divine appearance of the supreme Lord, one who chants His holy name, I don't have any powers to judge their actions because their sins are destroyed by the chanting of holy names of the supreme Lord".

"One who treats everybody with equality and one who lives in proximity with the Lord are praised even by the deities themselves. Hence, my messengers, the Lord Himself protects such people. You should only bring those people to Yamapuri who are engaged in sensual activities like lust, anger, sex have attachment with the worldly relations".